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News / 3 February 2014

Our African partners in water ‘software’ have arrived

We welcome Dickens Kamugisha (AFIEGO), Sena Alouka (JVE Togo), Christian Hounkannou (JVE Benin), Ken Kinney (The Development Institute), Robert Kugonza (NAPE), Serah Munguti (Nature Kenya), Halinishi Yusuf (ELCI) and Abby Onencan (Nile Basin Discourse). They have all been working on participatory watermanagement in the countries they come from, and we've invited them to come to the Netherlands to see how they can join forces. 

Water stress

Water is scarce, globally one out of every six people have no adequate access to clean water. Water stress increases in Africa, driven by climate change and rising demand from economic development. The Netherlands is a top exporter of technical water engineering; we export dredging, dam- and port construction and make billions of profit.

 

The all important ‘software’

Together with our partners, Both ENDS exports beyond this engineering. After all, water stress cannot be solved by using the ‘hardware’ alone. The ‘software’ is just as important: how to share water in a fair way with all parties involved, how to arrange water management, and how to keep water clean accessible and available for everyone, now and in the future.

 

Lunch

On Wednesday the 5th of february we have lunch at the Ministery of Foreign Affairs in the Hague. Two of our partners will present their cases to a selected audience of more than fifty interested and influential guests. We have put the all the cases of our partners in a handout.

 

Africa on the IJssel
Thursday the 6th we go on a field trip to a Dutch water surplus area of the river IJssel near Zutphen, where the Dutch "polder" way of water management can be illustrated. The magic words in a good approach are participation, negotiation and compensation, which are crucial in dealing with the fair management of water and allocation of land use. Together we call this the 'Negotiated Approach’.

 

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